STONE SOUR Drummer: 'Package Tours Are The Way To Go'

Elliot Levin of the NY Hard Rock Music Examiner recently conducted an interview with STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

NY Hard Rock Music Examiner: Good, thanks! You guys are headlining the first-ever Avalanche Tour, last summer you played on the first ever Uproar Tour... who keeps coming up with these new festival style tours, and how do they differ from a traditional, say, three-band tour?
Roy: The only thing that's different is maybe they're a little bit longer, and I just think the package tours just seem to work better these days, just with the state of the music industry and the economy, it just gives people more for the money and a really good time. I think it's a really good thing for these tours like [Rockstar Energy Drink] Mayhem, and Uproar and Avalanche, package tours are the way to go, everyone wins.

NY Hard Rock Music Examiner: You're touring behind your new album, "Audio Secrecy". When I listen to it, I feel like it's a much more dynamic, maybe even progressive record than the first two. Do you feel like the band is trying to stretch or change the traditional limits of hard rock?

Roy: Well, honestly, the record kind of just came out how it came out, we didn't put too much thought into it like how we wanted it to sound or what we were going to write or how we were going to approach it, it just came out naturally like that. We have five writers in the band now, which definitely lent a big eclectic mix of music and that's pretty much why it sounds the way it sounds.

NY Hard Rock Music Examiner: What does the term "Audio Secrecy" mean?

Roy: It has many different meanings, but the meaning I've been hearing most, especially from Corey [Taylor, vocals], is it describes a tone of a particular song or a particular record from a particular band, like say the tone on PINK FLOYD's "The Wall". There's a tone there that's just subliminal, that's what it means. A subliminal tone.

NY Hard Rock Music Examiner: Corey is definitely one of the most outgoing, crowd-interactive frontmen. What's a STONE SOUR show like for you back on the drum riser?

Roy: A lot of hills and valleys, very dynamic. Very hard-hitting at some points and soft at others... I don't really think about those things, you know? I just feel it. Some nights some of the shows are more full-on, and others, depending on how we all feel. We're human, so it's different every day. I have a great time doing it.

Read the entire interview from NY Hard Rock Music Examiner.